On the surface, Unsane is a potboiler, a routine stalker thriller. But it works because of how much there is going on within that familiar structure, courtesy of Jonathan Bernstein & James Greer’s smart script, Soderbergh’s claustrophobic direction, and Claire Foy’s committed lead performance.

The more heightened aspects of this genre piece don’t feel of place thanks to both lead performers operating with remarkable subtlety.

What makes this film special, first and foremost, is the performance by Chin, who has lost none of the acerbic edge she sported as Waverly’s mother in “The Joy Luck Club.”

What does all of this add up to? Damned if I know. But it's fun to see a film that plays by its own rules to such a degree that any comparison to anything else falls apart.

While Larraín has an undeniably strong eye, this film completely collapses without a believable performer in the title role, one who can sell both regret and passion, sometimes in the same dance move. Di Girolamo never takes a false step.

A proudly old-fashioned Gothic fable with grain and grit, the delectable “Vourdalak” is swift to announce in its early moments that we are in the hands of a skillful stylist.

It’s raw and often powerful—less of a carefully shaped drama than the equivalent of a series of boxes filled with explosive material being slung about.

The cuteness of Godmothered is a winning one overall, especially in how it uses a playful sense of humor and good heart to find its own way to Happily Ever After.

If A Life in Dirty Movies had a tagline, it would be “Come for the sex, stay for the love story.” It’s a deeper, more rewarding experience than its title suggests.

Somewhere along the road between Montreal and Mongolia, Namibia and Nepal, Egypt and Ecuador, “Blink” achieves a transcendent state of grace.

This is not the kind of film you put on during a holiday when you want something that the extended family can relax and enjoy. This is bitter, sharp stuff, verging on the Paul Schrader film Affliction but without the murder plot.

As an evocation of on-the-ground political reality, The Final Year is a a solid and often entertaining work in much the same wheelhouse as the durable political documentary "The War Room."

With “The Moogai,” Bell wrestles with the horrors of the past and acknowledges the history of the Aboriginal children who never had a chance at a future.

As Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of David Eggers’ novel proves, it’s entertainment just to stare back at Hanks.

This is an unusually intelligent and purposeful movie that doesn't say much, but is full of feeling.

Lively is superb here, giving one of those hyper-focused, action-lead performances that's as much an athletic feat as an aesthetic one.

While I remain disappointed that the sequel gives me a subdued Gru and an uneven pace, I keep remembering things about Despicable Me 2 that make me smile. For every meh moment, there's almost 2 well-conceived gags or lines.

Call it a revisionist or an absurdist Western if you will, but Audiard’s film feels both refreshingly new (without ever going to the extreme lengths the Zellner Brothers did with “Damsel”) and nostalgically familiar.

From the start, Pizza Movie erupts with the type of confidence you can’t help but admire even if its wavelength might not be for everyone.

A compelling historical drama in Diplomacy, which benefits greatly from the razor-sharp, theater-honed skills of two formidable French actors, Niels Arestrup and André Dussollier, who created the roles on stage.

Conflict doesn’t have to be some huge melodramatic thing, but the total lack of inner conflict in Mary might be why Mary and the Witch’s Flower — as transportive and entertaining as it is — feels a little slight.

Here, finally, is the movie that you likely wanted to see in the first place, replete with fantastic beasts, computer-generated spells, and other supernatural attractions. If you embrace this superior sequel for what it is, you’ll find a lot to like in “Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force.”

Even with the inclusion of modern cell phones, this 2018 release feels like it arrived fresh from 1974, and that is what makes it a delight.

Bad Education also calls to mind the great Alexander Payne film “Election,” with its students who are smarter and savvier than you’d expect and teachers who aren’t as mature and responsible as you’d hope. Finley actually could have used a bit more of Payne’s sharp bite in tackling this material.

Whether it’s in a nightgown or in the full, glorious regalia Aretha Franklin adorned in her concert appearances, Hudson performs with the same tireless intensity Re was known for throughout her career. It’s a damn good performance and this is a damn entertaining movie.

What We Did On Our Holiday, written and directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, is replete with zingers, a quality not to be disdained in a family comedy of miscommunication.

To be honest, the cynic in me thought “Paper & Glue” was going to be a piece of fluff that would make me roll my eyes at the notion of this type of art having an effect on society at large. But the film turns out to be a lot sharper, more pointed, and more poignant than its subject matter may imply.

It's fragmented by nature—a work of impressionistic moments in which intellectual and philosophical ideas are considered, and powerful emotions summoned and then allowed to dissipate.

Kneecap is “about” a lot of things, and its pace makes it impossible to resist getting swept up in it.

The minute Bill Cunningham starts talking in this charming documentary is the minute you fall in love with him.

With its frequent use of puppetry and quirky animation, Boom Bust Boom suggests what an old-school episode of “Sesame Street” would’ve played like, had it focused solely on the subprime crash.

Even though Fighting with My Family is undoubtedly about branding the WWE as a fantasy factory, its biggest strength is in its wit and surprisingly big heart, celebrating underdogs who rumble for what they love.

It isn’t a prestige film; it’s the kind of story that reminds us we can heal through connections to the past and each other.

What it does explore makes it a satisfying, lighthearted look at one man’s search for perceived vocal machismo.

Sembene! is most illuminating when it is simply showing us clips from the director's features and behind-the-scenes or "making of" footage, with very little in the way of verbal setup, and then letting them play out.

Darren Lynn Bousman's St. Agatha goes so full-bore into the scary nun trope it's practically nunsploitation, and the mood he establishes — the look and feel of the claustrophobic "convent in the film — launches St. Agatha into a weirdo plane of phantasmagorical psychological and physical torment.

Everything in 1BR is over-exposed, often literally thanks to the movie’s basic camera set-ups and general emphasis on naturally and/or harshly front-lit close-ups, or medium shots of brown stucco walls.

Chol Soo Lee’s complicated story deserves to be told; this film does a good job telling it.

It works not because of its focus on what the wildly famous British band Blur was in the ‘90s (that’s been done in other docs), but on what they are now in the 2020s. It’s about aging as much as it’s about “Song 2,” and about trying to find something that hasn’t faded away inside of an artist.

More than any film in recent memory, The Retrieval made this reviewer yearn for the subtle softness and subliminal flicker of celluloid, as opposed to digital's sometimes overbearing brightness and clarity.

Far from being just a simple comedy about fitness and weight loss, Brittany’s journey includes the healing and forgiveness it takes to really meet those goals.

Hall's dialogue compels you to listen, to lean in, but Johnson and Penn draw us into their separate worlds and histories, each face telling a million stories.

"Cars" and its various derivatives aside, Pixar has never released a flat-out bad film. And this is a good one: pleasant and clever, with a generous heart, committed voice acting, and some of the kookiest images in Pixar history.

Its makers know all too well how to fully exploit the power of a catchy pop song.

Robert the Bruce is gorgeously filmed by cinematographer John Garrett, making the most of every exquisitely lit crag of the Scottish countryside.

Sew Torn marks an auspicious debut for MacDonald.

If Black & Blues returns to the same melody a few too many times, it doesn't diminish the overall achievement, which feels free in a way that these sorts of films rarely do.

It is a touching document of seemingly regular people who yearn to keep an artistic tradition alive.

So much of “Influencers” works as well as it does because of Harder’s cleverly unpredictable and often remarkably funny script.

Thankfully, Studio 4°C’s sumptuous animation and sound design still make “All You Need is Kill” a vivid and worthwhile do-over.

The film introduces us to some intriguing characters, several of whom deserve their own movies, but it would benefit from a clearer focus.

There's so much detail and such a clear sense of dramatic proportion that it almost doesn't matter that the movie doesn't resolve itself traditionally or with a full stop. You can still get a clear sense of how time moves for the workers in Zhili in "Youth (Homecoming)" without necessarily knowing what comes next.

They Cloned Tyrone may bend under the weight of ideas, but it never breaks, largely because of its great ensemble but also because Juel Taylor clearly has an eye and an ambition that screams promise.

Come As You Are tells its story through empathy, compassion and what feels like winsome insider-y humor.

Anderson’s accomplishment here defies easy comparison. It’s not a comeback. It’s a beginning.

Religion can provide some solace, but it can also complicate matters. Science can explain the natural processes, but even then, it cannot account for every detail in every situation. To Dust is about those contradictions and, in the end, about the ultimate one: that, to some questions, the only logical and spiritual answer is that there isn't one — except whatever we make of it.

In Richard Gere’s deft, veteran hands, Norman Oppenheimer is consistently, completely fascinating. You may not be able to root for him, but you can’t help but feel for him.

Breillat’s approach is technically intimate yet tonally detached -- languid as a summer’s day, sometimes unbearably so, and often uncomfortably warm.

Farrow is an ideal centerpiece presence for "Surveilled," because he's both a good reporter and a crisp communicator. He uses purposefully scary language, not just to scare us (though he does), but for maximum clarity.

What Taylor and his game cast, led by Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage, do get right will leave you excited, and eager for more.

Mamet’s stark existentialism comes to a shudder-inducing yet mordantly satisfying head in this expertly rendered picture. The text might not be vintage Mamet, but it’s a real meal.

At its best, López’s movie has that del Toro signature style, and she also proves herself a deft director of children, another element she shares in common with the Oscar winner.

This is a more-than-solid observational comedy with a melancholy undertone, reminiscent of early Albert Brooks movies like “Modern Romance.”

The Road Movie operates on a unique tonal wavelength, one that’s both manic and oddly comforting.

What we’re seeing in “September 5” is the birth of live news as entertainment. It’s the opening salvo in a long and sadly successful war against journalistic ethics and ideals that would lead to the current pathetic conditions of cable and Internet “news,” which consist largely of “takes” rather than original reporting.

It's to the credit of Anthony, who wrote and edited as well as directed, and his cinematographer Corey Hughes, that you come away thinking about parts of the film that felt like cut-able digressions and undergraduate musings when you were watching them.

If it were possible to splice the DNA of William Faulkner and John Cassavetes, the resulting progeny might produce a film like Roberto Minervini’s The Other Side, an immersive, almost harrowingly naturalistic plunge into the lives of marginal Louisianans obsessed with guns, drugs and belligerent resentments.

Nothing will break your heart as much as watching this man, desperate to keep this woman in his life, waltzing around the room with a laptop in his arms while staring into her faraway eyes.

It is a good thing these actors are charming enough that they aren’t too hampered by a long string of fish-out-of-water gags.

No one mentions it explicitly in the movie, but this film could be in the curriculum of a grad school course on Critical Race Theory, which is not, as some confused people claim, about diversity training in corporate offices or amending history books in grade school.

Chen is influenced by the French New Wave, and there are echoes of "Bande à part" and “Jules and Jim.” But do not let the meandering series of scenes, underscoring the characters’ aimlessness, allow you to overlook Chen's precision in even the smallest detail.

It's satisfying, for the most part—a solid romantic comedy with sharp dialogue, amusing characters, a soundtrack of well-worn feel-good hits, and a few surprises up its sleeve. Its only major flaw is an inability to imagine the bosses as richly as the leads.

Despite that emotional distance, the film is carried by young actress Lea van Acken, forced to really emotionally deliver given the lack of camera tricks some actors use as a crutch.

This movie should probably be considered more promotional material than journalism, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because it's the most intellectually stimulating kind of promotion, concentrating on the illumination of the artistic process rather than cliches and hype.

This isn’t a classic, but it’s good enough to make you think Fuller has a classic in him.

It’s a pretty good movie that, thanks mainly to its performances, has a lot more life than you might expect, given the concept and the formulaic way that it hits its major story points.

Dibbs does a fine job bringing a nuanced, realistic visual style to this venerable tale of war’s cruel and colossal wastes, and his actors are all first-rate, with Bettany a special stand-out.

This is an impressive piece of work that deploys low-budget filmmaking techniques with cleverness.

The movie has a small story but a big theme; the theme being experience, and it conveys the emotions and moods of its characters by taking things nice and slow.

Rather than indicting the church itself, Betts seems more interested in exploring what drives these girls on the brink of adulthood to pursue such a rigorous spiritual quest—and what prompts some of them to abandon it.

Of course, the clothes are great: racks of shimmery, sequined knockouts and rows of fierce pumps. And it wouldn’t be a “Charlie’s Angels” adventure without a variety of wild costumes for the ladies to don for their undercover assignments as well as an assortment of high-tech gadgets.

After Tiller takes the politically divisive, emotionally charged issue of late-term abortions and portrays it with grace, understatement and humanity.

It’s a bit too long and a lot too silly, but most people won’t care. And in a year with almost no even-modestly-good holiday offerings (sorry to the two “Red One” fans), this might be the best Christmas movie of the year.

The post-apocalyptic landscapes captured by the courageous lens of cinematographer Artem Ryzhykov are deeply chilling, especially when Alexandrovich stumbles upon a classroom littered with gas masks.

By the time the film eases into its final stretch, it becomes a sub-genre of drama that I call "accidental radio," meaning that even though there are pictures, you might not see them all because you're covering your eyes a lot of the time.

In spite of its icy backdrop, the part home-invasion chiller, part murder-mystery Till Death could prove to be the actual summer movie you’ve been craving for a while: undemanding, a little silly, but a thoroughly engrossing and handsomely paced edge-of-your seat experience all the same.

It’s an efficient, clever genre mash-up that works because of how well Byrne blocks its action, employs an old-fashioned score, and directs his actors to visceral performances.

It is an educational journey, an uncompromising look into the challenges of an artistic life, and a tribute to the man whose studio and dance company still bear his name.

This fairly laugh-packed comedy aims to address the desire for intimate companionship in older adults, an increasingly topical issue as more Americans live into their nineties.

Without Charlize Theron, the spy adventure Atomic Blonde would only be clever. She makes it insightful. The actress gives emotional depth to the highly mannered behavior of the film’s heroine.

Jawline works gently, slowly, presenting its subject and sub-culture with not just affection but sympathy, a sympathy very close to tenderness.

As Aaron’s star patient and best friend, LeBron James is kind of wonderful playing a version of himself who’s sensitive, analytical and strangely stingy. It’s an inspired casting choice.

On the whole, “Julia” won’t be the most groundbreaking meal you’ve ever had, but you’ll leave the table comforted and satisfied, in a state of bliss that Child would very much approve of.

An intriguing doc that juggles ’90s nostalgia with an optimism for student journalism that avoids over-sentimentality.

While it keeps a sharp, neo-realist-influenced eye on the everyday lives of its characters, Joyland often gets so intimate as to discomfit the viewer to the point of exasperation. But the movie itself never judges.

It is a movie of moments. But some of those moments are so good, its optimism is so refreshing, its dialogue so bright, and its characters and performances so endearing, it well rewards a watch.

The film’s frank talk about mental illness, suicidal thoughts, physical abuse and family loss is so potent and necessary that it makes you wish Fanning hadn’t been saddled with a treacly narration at the end, summarizing the themes.

The movie never entirely convinces us that its heroine has the capacity to kill, although her pain and loss are conveyed with skill by Fishback.